The Americas

Haiti's politics

Titid time

EVER since Jean-Claude Duvalier, a former dictator of Haiti, made a surprising return home in January, anticipation regarding the return of another ousted leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had swirled around the country. The logic was clearer than that of most Haitian rumours: If a despot could come back, swilling wine at the capital's finest restaurants, why not Haiti's first democratically elected leader?

How one viewed the prospect of “Titid”'s return from South Africa, where he had been exiled since his ouster in 2004, depended on one's station. The poor, many of whom all but worshipped the diminutive former-priest-turned-president, mostly welcomed it. By contrast, Haiti's tiny propertied class, which was burned by insecurity and disorder during Mr Aristide's second term, dreaded it.

The United States, for its part, worried that Mr Aristide's presence in Haiti would disrupt the vulnerable second round of Haiti's presidential election, which took place on March 20th. Last week, a spokesman for America's State Department said that Mr Aristide's plan to return before the run-off “could only be seen as a conscious choice to impact Haiti's elections.” In a phone call on March 15th, Barack Obama urged his South African counterpart, Jacob Zuma, to delay chartering Mr Aristide's flight from Johannesburg until after the vote.

Was all that worry for naught? When Mr Aristide alighted at Toussaint Louverture International Airport two days before the run-off, observers listened in vain to his remarks for an endorsement or explicit instructions to boycott the election. Save for a brief remark on the “exclusion” of his political party, Lavalas, there was none. The voting proceeded far more smoothly on Sunday than it did in the chaotic first round—vindicating both Mr Aristide's much-reiterated insistence that he intends to work in education, not politics, and his lawyer's statement that Mr Aristide wanted to return before the run-off only because the next government might oppose his return.

It is still too soon to judge, however, what effect Mr Aristide's presence might have on Haiti's troubled democracy. Despite a controversial second-term record, an ouster, and a seven-year absence, Mr Aristide remains beloved by many poor Haitians. Thousands came to seem him at his residence Friday, some scaling the walls and mango trees to catch a glimpse. Many still speak of him in Biblical terms. “The people were hungry when they went to see Titid Friday,” said Marie Louise Delisca, a housekeeper in the capital. “They saw him, and they were full.”

For now, he is still settling in. Just a week ago, the Aristides' house was unfurnished, and as his wife, Mildred, prepared for departure from Johannesburg on Thursday night, she, was unsure whether they and their two daughters would have a bed to sleep in. Plans for Mr Aristide's security remain unclear: his request for 60 police officers to protect him was reportedly denied. Most of all, it might take him some time to get reacquainted with a country whose landscape has been transformed since he left, by devastating hurricanes, a lethal earthquake, a raging cholera epidemic, and hundreds of thousands living under tents and tarps in the capital.

This should be an international scandal... ,
which by the way never were to hapen if "nato", "onu" and all the president and their cabinet werent so close to him maintaining good relations, after all most of those dictators live in France and a few in the USA the exact countries that made possible for those same Autocrate to arrive in power in the first place..

After they have created a real mess like etnies massacres (the Infamous Rwanda/Uganda among the worsts), the disapearing of the public funds, etc, they proceede to sell weapons of mass destruction like bombs or fancy french military airplanes, as well as hammers, machetes (those wore sold by the french and canadians), so at the end I guess those countries at war and with endless almost unsolvable problems like Haiti or some others in Africa to name some, are really a Necesity to nato, onu countries for that they are totaly articulated within the corruption schemes of our fractured and totaly flawed politico economic system.

See how both dictators came back with absolutly no problem, one even return for the first time after more than 25 years.... Life is really a joke to some..